Okay, I exported my Default Site on my QA Server as in Part 1. Copied the file to the destination PROD Server and ran the importsite command. No errors, yes! Then I ran the importsite_verified command...SUCCESS! Here's the output of it all and it took just 9 minutes for the verify command:

Here's the imported Site:

The first thing I did was go to the Schedules page and Disable all of them so nothing goes out to my end users. My testing is finally complete Now I know what to do when I am ready for the actual Site transfer.

In summary

The export process is pretty simple, however, the import process is unforgiving!

tabadmin export

- If you do have to do additional exports you do need to remove the original file or else rename it as the export process will not over-write the zip file if it already exists.

- The export process does take some time and it locks the Site from EVERYONE! The Site I moved had:

Users: 2121

Groups: 41

Projects: 28

Workbooks: 121

Views: 563

Schedules: 8

Data Sources: 77

My export times averaged 51 minutes for the above.

- Much of the time my QA Server looked like it was doing nothing so while the process is running just be patient. If you must stop the processing try Ctrl + c, that worked for me.

tabadmin import...

- When it comes to the import it's best, as we've seen, to just fix everything and not try to work around it, especially when it comes to end user errors. However, if you get no errors then the whole process moves along rather quickly.

I hope this helps some of you. While it's not a difficult process it does require manual error checking, which can be a real bummer since automating it wouldn't be easy between Servers if there were any differences. This would probably be easier if the Site contents was being moved to another Site on the same Server.